Editing Ghost Hunt:Volume 7 Prologue (section)

===2===

The man who stepped out was the monk, as Takahashi mentioned, was – Romeo Takigawa Hou-sou, aka Bou-san.

Originally from Mount Takano, he currently works at some studio. And even though I'm saying all this, I've never met that side of Bou-san ever before. Although Takahashi had shown me many CDs printed with ‘Norio Takigawa’ on the cover, I’m still incapable of linking those two people together.

“Mai! Naru can be discharged. I’m going to pack the bags now, do you want to come too?”

“I’m coming!”

Actually, we really don't need that many people to go handle the discharge procedure. But Bou-san’s car has an air-conditioner. And I'd much rather ride in an air-conditioned car than walk back in the unbearable heat. We'll just drive to the hospital, and then drive back. Hey, this is the best way to do it.

“The heat is killing me!” The woman beside me complained loudly as I sat down in the backseat. 

“Are you an idiot? You deliberately travel that far on a hot day like today, just to go to a phone booth to make a phone call.”

“But I have to call the office, and there are no public phones where we stay.”

“That store can't be that heartless; you just need to borrow the phone.”

“Mai and Ayako are different; she is not brave, and borrowing other's phones to make long-distance calls isn’t easy either. Not that going so far just to use a phone booth is any better.”

It was at least 10 minute walk from the lodgings.

“I rudely borrowed a phone from someone?”

“There’s no such thing. I think it’s Ayako who doesn’t know manners or perhaps her skin is thicker (tl/n: less easily embarrassed).”

“- Mai, tonight you must tell me fully what you said over the phone!”

“No way!” With that I punched Bou-san, but only lightly.

Ayako is Matsuzaki Ayako. She’s a self-proclaimed priestess, but a priestess made up so garishly was beyond my imagination; she’s also very cool. You could say she has a dynamic personality. However, she donated a lot of clothes to the parentless me, who is unable to wear those high quality clothes. That’s why I say, she’s a sharp tongued, soft hearted big sister. She always says, “This clothing suits you very well, it doesn’t fit me” and what not. In a line, to be able to be with Ayako like this is also some sort of fate.

Ayako looked at Bou-san and I and couldn’t stop laughing secretly on one side.

Masako’s full name is Hara Masako. She is a medium who frequently appears on Wideshow and other similar programs. She, clearly, like me, is just the age of a high-school student, but the difference between us is so great, this fellow! She’s currently infatuated with the boss of ‘Shibuya Psychic Research (SPR)’ – our boss. I heard she cried because she had to go back to Tokyo to record a program.

“Apparently it was Naru who wanted to be discharged!”

“He requested to be discharged?” I turned back to look at Masako. 

What in the world is he thinking of, that young master! Naru, who I’ve called ‘Naru’ from the first, and who I call ‘Naru-chan’ affectionately now, is our boss who opened his own offices in Shibuya at age seventeen. Towards the older people he always wears an apathetic look; his personality is also terrible. Summing it up it’s a look of supreme arrogance and omnipotence.

“If he’s so willful, he’ll die young.”

“Well said.”

“Forget it, it’s not like that fellow Naru’s willfulness started today.” Ayako opened her mouth to speak.

“And it’s not like he has to create trouble for others, furthermore it’s not only because there’s something wrong with his own body. If Naru does this then isn’t it not wrong?” Although the words are a little too much, they are indeed the truth.